Even though having experienced a resurgence in popularity with the advent of the internet, marketing the articles is a technique of advertising that has existed for as long as there has been printed mass media. Article marketing differs from traditional print advertising in that, as opposed to a short, concise advert, a fairly short (four hundred fifty to five hundred fifty words) educational article is used to advertise a company's products or services. Though these articles can be independently written by a third party basically praising the company through opinions or commentary, the articles are predominantly written by the company itself.

But there are many functions for marketing the articles to fulfill and most of them involve the lucrative advertisement. To attract potential customers, the articles themselves are usually written on a subject that is tangentially related to whatever the company is hoping to sell. So for instance, a company that deals in indoor heating might right before winter release an article about the most successful ways to keep your home heated during the colder time of year.

By informing the reader of info appropriate to their present instances, the company draws attention to its goods and services. When making reference to printed article marketing, these articles are then published in readily available print sources - newspapers, magazines, brochures, pamphlets, etc. Unlike conventional adverts, however, companies tend to prevent paying for publication. As an alternative, publishers requiring content for their publications are normally happy to accept relevant, informative articles from companies invested in article marketing.

The company, looking to expose their article or advertisement, is happy to provide free content to the publisher, in exchange for the publisher enabling them to include post-scripted references to the company so that readers curious in the material would subsequently seek out the company for further inquiry, possible becoming a customer. The invention of the internet provided a place for article marketing to flourish. Given the interactivity and convenient interface of a web browser, article marketing is perfectly suitable for the world wide web.

Rather than simple post scripted references, articles can now consist of hyperlinks leading to the company's website - quickly bridging the gap between the reader's interest in the article, and the availability of the products and services offered by the company. The presence of hyperlinks, if used properly with specific keywords, can also possibly boost the company website's meaning in search engine queries, the practice of which is the core theory behind search engine optimization.

Simply because web space is cheap, if anything at all, companies may no longer even need third party publishers to expose their articles to the public. Articles can instead be published on websites and blogs preserved for minimal cost by the company itself. Also, because web space is virtually unlimited, the article can be published in multiple locations, in multiple variations, exposing it to a much, much wider listeners.